Users awaiting email confirmation are spamming via PM's!?

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  • Tourmeister
    Member
    • Sep 2005
    • 80
    • 3.0.8

    Users awaiting email confirmation are spamming via PM's!?

    Howdy,

    I am running VB 3.8.1 (patch level 1).

    When users register, they have to do the image verification, email verification, and then finally one of our admins will manually review each account. So far, that has worked pretty well to keep out spammers.

    Recently, we have been getting users that are spamming via PM's even though their accounts are NOT yet active. They are still in the "Users awaiting email confirmation" usergroup. I have reviewed the settings for that usergroup to ensure that the ability to use PM's is set to zero (off). Nonetheless, we have had several spam attacks where a user in this group is able to send many PM's with spam in them. I do not understand how they are doing this or how to stop them.

    I would appreciate any assistance.

    Thanks.
    Scott Friday
    Two Wheeled Texans
  • Lynne
    Former vBulletin Support
    • Oct 2004
    • 26255

    #2
    So Maximum Stored Messages is set to 0 for the Users Awaiting Email Confirmation group? You are positive they are in that group when they are spamming? They are not in any secondary usergroup?

    Please don't PM or VM me for support - I only help out in the threads.
    vBulletin Manual & vBulletin 4.0 Code Documentation (API)
    Want help modifying your vbulletin forum? Head on over to vbulletin.org
    If I post CSS and you don't know where it goes, throw it into the additional.css template.

    W3Schools <- awesome site for html/css help

    Comment

    • Tourmeister
      Member
      • Sep 2005
      • 80
      • 3.0.8

      #3
      Correct. It is set to zero. I have confirmed that each time the user was still a member of the "Users awaiting email confirmation" usergroup ONLY and their accounts were never fully activated. The PM's were sent with their username and to multiple users at one time.
      Scott Friday
      Two Wheeled Texans

      Comment

      • Lynne
        Former vBulletin Support
        • Oct 2004
        • 26255

        #4
        Can you duplicate this yourself? If so, try disabling your modifications/plugins and see if you still have this problem.
        Note: To temporarily disable the plugin system, edit config.php and add this line right under <?php

        PHP Code:
        define('DISABLE_HOOKS'true); 

        Please don't PM or VM me for support - I only help out in the threads.
        vBulletin Manual & vBulletin 4.0 Code Documentation (API)
        Want help modifying your vbulletin forum? Head on over to vbulletin.org
        If I post CSS and you don't know where it goes, throw it into the additional.css template.

        W3Schools &lt;- awesome site for html/css help

        Comment

        • Tourmeister
          Member
          • Sep 2005
          • 80
          • 3.0.8

          #5
          I think I figured out what was happening. I went back and rechecked ALL of the usergroups.

          After a user clicks the link in the confirmation email, they change usergroups, from "Users awaiting email confirmation" to "(COPPA) Users awaiting Moderation". It was while they were members of the second group that they were able to send the PM's. I went and double checked that group and sure enough, it was set to allow PM's I disabled it and used a test account to verify that PM's were no longer available. That seems to have done the trick. Odd that in the years my forum has been online, spammers have just now started doing this. Anyway, sorry to trouble you but thanks for the effort to help.
          Scott Friday
          Two Wheeled Texans

          Comment

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